In the rift of the void, a peculiar object formed from countless converging streams—not even Huang Siniang had ever seen anything like it.
Yet one could vaguely sense that something lay within this strange object; otherwise, it wouldn't have been able to draw the streams together like this.
This thing was most likely the Grand Yan Core that Yang Kai had been searching for.
If that were the case, then the only way to retrieve the core was to peel away the countless void streams that had accumulated over thirty thousand years.
That was, without question, an incredibly tedious task.
Huang Siniang found it rather exasperating. She had voluntarily given him her tail feather mainly so she could stick close to him, find some excitement, maybe kill a few Ink Clan here and there—and here she was on her very first outing being put to work as a pack mule.
If this spherical, peculiar object were compared to a ball of yarn, then the countless streams converging within it would be the threads—layer upon layer, interwoven and tangled in utter chaos. To peel them apart would mean drawing out each individual thread one by one, until whatever was hidden inside was finally revealed. It would require tremendous willpower and patience.
It was a brute-force method, but the only one available.
Yang Kai had already begun working as soon as he finished speaking. The Laws of Space surged forth, condensing into a barrier that isolated the sphere.
Isolation was essential, because the sphere was continuously drawing in the surrounding void streams at every moment. Without cutting it off, they would never manage to strip it clean.
For Yang Kai at his current level, this sort of task wasn't particularly difficult.
Before long, the barrier formed from the Laws of Space had enveloped the sphere.
The Laws of Space continued to fluctuate as Yang Kai extended his divine sense toward the sphere, probing for weak points he could exploit.
After a short while, a single void stream clinging to the sphere's surface was drawn out and guided beyond the barrier, cast into the surrounding rift.
The first step was always the hardest. With that initial experience, the second attempt came far more easily.
After stripping away several dozen void streams in succession, Yang Kai turned his head toward Huang Siniang, who was standing off to the side with nothing to do, and called out, "Don't just stand there spacing out, Siniang. Give me a hand."
Thirty thousand years—who knew how many void streams the sphere had gathered in that time? Though many had likely fused together and others had dissipated, the remainder was still vast in number. Stripping them away alone would take who knew how long.
Huang Siniang shot him a venomous glare. "I really do owe you something, don't I?"
Despite her words, she set to work without hesitation. Yang Kai immediately sensed an incredibly dense fluctuation of the Laws of Space emanating from her direction. Then, with a casual sweep of her slender hand, a void stream was drawn out.
The speed was incomparably faster than his own.
Yang Kai watched with genuine admiration. The Phoenix Clan was the Phoenix Clan, after all.
Not only that, Huang Siniang's speed only increased. After a brief period of acclimation, her hands moved in a blur, fingers flickering in rapid succession. Under the surging Laws of Space, the void streams clinging to the sphere were pulled away one after another at a breathtaking pace.
This was clearly a profound application of the Dao of Space.
Yang Kai continued silently peeling away void streams while openly studying her technique, devoting a portion of his attention to observing Huang Siniang's movements and grasping the underlying principles.
This method of applying the Laws of Space was extraordinarily deep. Anyone whose understanding of the Laws of Space was insufficient would have been completely lost watching it. Yet Yang Kai needed only half an hour to absorb its essence entirely.
Before long, the two of them stood on opposite sides of the peculiar sphere, each channeling their own power, furiously unravelling the layers of threads with manic intensity.
As the void streams clinging to its surface diminished, the colossal sphere steadily shrank in size.
Both Yang Kai and Huang Siniang grew faster at stripping the streams away, each reaching their own peak.
Yang Kai quietly did the calculations. At their current rate, it should take at most half a year to strip the sphere clean entirely, at which point whatever was hidden inside would be plainly visible.
It was most likely the Grand Yan Core—after all, in a place like this, nothing else could have been lost here.
Yet only about a month had passed when Huang Siniang suddenly stopped and looked at Yang Kai. "I can't keep going. You're on your own."
With that, her figure blurred and she hurtled straight toward Yang Kai.
Mid-flight, a flash of seven-colored light shimmered, and the clone reverted to the tail feather. Yang Kai quickly caught it.
Not knowing whether Siniang could still hear him, he said anyway, "Thank you for your help."
Going by this, the tail feather was indeed different from a clone—at the very least, a clone wouldn't have its power drained this quickly.
He wondered whether Huang Siniang could use this clone form again. His guess was that she could.
He casually tucked it into his spatial ring. Siniang was perfectly capable of bypassing the ring's sealing power on her own; whenever she wanted to appear, she would simply come out on her own.
Without Siniang's help, Yang Kai had to fight alone, and the originally projected half-year timeline roughly doubled as a result.
Yang Kai didn't find it tedious. This method of stripping void streams was rare and precisely the kind of challenge that could advance his own cultivation of the Dao of Space. His current speed had already reached a limit, and if he could break through that limit, perhaps his understanding of the Dao of Space would advance as well.
In the days that followed, Yang Kai continuously experimented with various methods for peeling away the void streams, and made modest progress.